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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

It all started last Thurday night when, gourmet chef that I am, I decided to make Hamburger Helper for dinner. The recipe (can I really call it a "recipe" when it's Hamburger Helper?!) called for milk, so I reached into the fridge to get some out. I could see that there was a gallon of water in the way, so I slid it over to make a clear path for the milk. What I couldn't see, however, was that Hannah had put an unfinished cup of milk in the fridge behind the gallon of water, so as soon as I slid it over—splash! The cup of milk spilled all over the inside of the fridge. Grrrrr!

I called both kids into the kitchen so they could see how miserable I was having to clean up this mess and instantly declared a new rule in the house: You are not allowed to leave the dinner table if you have milk in your cup. In fact, you're not even allowed to ask permission to leave the dinner table if you still have milk in your cup. Then I went back to cooking our meal.

Now, this paragraph doesn't have anything to do with milk, except that it involves beef, and they both come from cows. Still, I'm including it for sympathy points. :) So there I was, cooking our lovely Hamburger Helper meal. When I brown ground beef, I stick the beef in a colander and put the colander in a bowl and cook it in the microwave so the grease drains away from the meat. So I had two pounds of meat cooking away. "No need to sit here and stare at it the whole time," I told myself, so I walked away and did something with eternal significance: checked to see if my blog followers had made it to the double-digits yet. While I was doing this, unbeknownst to me, the bowl tipped over, spilling two pounds' worth of ground beef grease all over the bottom of my microwave. Now, you don't have to look at me long to know I'm not the kind of girl who buys lean ground beef, so there was a lot of grease to clean up! "Lovely!" I thought to myself. "'Cause I've been needing something to clean up today!" Oooooh, if only I had known . . .

So I cleaned up the microwave mess and finished dinner. I dished the girls' plates (Greg was still at work), put their cups of milk on the table (can you guess what's going to happen yet?), and told them to wash their hands for dinner. While I was dishing my plate, I heard splash! followed by "Uh-oh." Millie had spilled her entire cup of milk on the table. It went down the crack in the middle where it opens up for the butterfly leaf, so the entire thing had to be pulled apart and the butterfly leaf had to be set up to get to all the milk. Blood pressure slowly rising.

I finally got all of that mess cleaned up and went to throw away the paper towels and rinse out the dish cloth, when (you're never gonna believe this) I heard another splash! followed by Hannah's voice saying, "I'm—I'm sorry, Mama." I think every muscle in my body tensed up. I turned around and looked at her and saw this little face that said, "Are you about to blow up, or am I safe here?" I couldn't imagine how crazy I must have looked to cause that expression, so I intentionally started laughing, which, I confess, did make me feel a little better. After all, we very rarely have spills these days, and here we'd had four within 45 minutes. Surely I was done cleaning up spills for, like, the next month or so! Yeah, right!

Fast forward to Friday morning. We had plans to go to The Museum of Natural Science with some friends. We were running late leaving the house (shocking, I know), so we went to Southern Maid to get some donuts and milk to eat in the car. The lady asked me if I wanted a cup with a lid for the milk. I thought for about a second and said, "No, they'll be fine." (People, learn from me . . . please!) They were fine for as long as it took me to get the key into the ignition, then I heard another splash! followed by Hannah's voice saying, "Oh, no! I'm sorry, Mom!" I turned around to see if it could be salvaged, but I immedately saw that it couldn't have possibly landed more upside-down, nor could it have possibly landed more on top of a month's worth of toys and co-op papers that never got taken into the house and trash that never got thrown away. I didn't have time to clean it out until Saturday morning, and you can just imagine how "ripe" it smelled by that time! But on the bright side, my 11-year-old car was thoroughly cleaned on Saturday—seats and floors shampooed and vacuumed, windows wiped, inside dusted, outside washed. It looked pretty nice. Looked. Until today.

Today we went grocery shopping, and one of the things on our list was milk. (Because I am apparently a slow learner.) So after we finished shopping, I put all of the groceries, including the milk in the trunk because that's where groceries belong after you go shopping. When I got home and started unloading the bags, I felt something wet. You guessed it! One of the gallons of milk had leaked out all over my trunk!

God, if you want me to be dairy-free, can you please give me a sign? 'Cause I can't tell for sure . . .

Oh my gosh.......I'm am laughing so hard I might have to run to the bathroom... ! Ok now I'm sympathizing with you. What are the odds of so many messes? It's not the milk - it's the blog follower watching (I have the same problem)!

Hi Jennifer!Thanks for stopping by my blog through Hip Homeschool Blog Hop and leaving a comment on my "Stories for the Homeschool Heart" post! Thanks for you encouraging words too :)This milk post is my life and it does get so frustrating cleaning up messes ALL the time :) Your story is funny and I think I would ban milk if I were you! :) The dumb Gallon jugs at Costco cause lots of milk messes in our house...we can't pour a glass of milk without it running down the jug!I saw your homemade butter/milk post and my kids make homemade butter at my in-laws house each year during the holidays! Fun!

Your blog is so cute and your children are adorable :)I'm your newest GFC follower! Come follow back if you'd like :)

Have a great day!Tracy at "A Slice of Smith Life"http://www.asliceofsmithlife.blogspot.com

Oh, what a day!! That same thing happened to a friend of mine. How awful. And of all things, it would have to be milk. I would definitely be crying or screaming. Your blog is great... will follow. Just visiting from the homeschool hop. If you are interested, mine are createdtobringhimglory.blogspot.com and animperfecths.blogspot.com

Oh my stars Jennifer... that was so funny! I'm pretty sure it wasn't funny while it was happening..but I COMPLETELY understand how frustrating that could be....Hope your doing better and hugs to your sweet girls..